Wednesday, February 25, 2009

This has been a week of pulverizing uncooked root veggies in the vitamix. Yeah! It's like I'm trying to challenge it or something. Made a breakfast-for-dinner meal one night, with some hash browns and a wicked tofu scramble (asparagus!!) Hash browns were yum and I realized I hadn't had them in forever.

Chili! I discovered it really does make it better if you throw some chocolate in there, in this case a handful of chocolate chips! It was a basic TVP/Diced Tomatoes/rehydrated red beans chili with lots of spices and a kick to it. The chocolate is essential to all my chili's from now on though.

Now, last saturday, I did possibly the dorkiest thing ever, and I was actually 50/50 on whether I should even admit this. Nik and I did a Lord of the Rings marathon. Meaning, we watched all three Special Edition (meaning they were LONGER than the originals) disks back-to-back. I KNOW. It was his idea, just for the record. It took us 12 hours!!! It was the most slothful day ever. We ate junk food and sat on the couch all day. My wii fit was PISSED at me the next day! I contemplated making some themed foods to go along, but all I could come up with was onion rings. Haha. I googled LOTR themed food, and okay, people are crazy and I didn't research much longer. :)

So! I made Blondies! (Vegan with a Vengeance Chocolate-chip Raspberry Blondies)And NACHOS! I used the nacho cheese sauce from Vegan Lunch Box. I totally ran out of cashews, so I just threw some tofu in it's place. Yum! I also liked the fact that it was bright orange. Very Kraft-esque. I put a healthy douse of Sriracha in it and it hit the spot. Oh, it did turn my tortillas into mush in 5 seconds though. I mashed some black beans and put some salsa and tofutti sour cream on it also.

So, I can eat beets if they are boiled! Nik's mom gave me this recipe (it's just boiled beets, raw onions, olive oil/vinegar mix, and some salt/pepper and carraway seeds) and it was yum. I made this salad up early saturday, before the marathon, along with the pulverized sweet potatoes/beet mixture for some Autumn Latkes (in Vcon), but we stuffed ourselves and weren't even remotely hungry for dinner later on. I made these the next day. I was only so-so on the Latkes, and they made a whollllle lot, so I saved half of the batter and made veggie burgers with them the next day. Leftovers of leftovers! The Veggie burger made from the leftover Autumn Latkes. I just added some of my leftover mashed black beans, about a half a cup of vital wheat gluten, and a tablespoon or so of ketchup, and baked them (brushed with olive oil). Also, purple potatoes! Oh yes I did.

And some in-progress' to swear to you that I really have been painting. My favorite part of painting is using different texture mediums to make fun crackles and granules with my watercolors. It looks so pretty when it's wet. Also, I sometimes have a problem where I like my sketch too much and have a big fear that the final piece won't live up to it. I think this might be the case on this one. I have a series of 5 sketches in this similar vein, waiting to be turned into paintings, but I might just end up going a different route on this one. I'm going to see this first painting through and then we'll see what happens.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Nik and I had a fab day yesterday. We went to the Museum of Natural History to play with the dinos, and then did some shopping for some things we needed around the apartment later on. Also, I bought a Wii Fit! So much fun! I decided to quit the gym and buy a Wii Fit and some running shoes ( I still need a good pair of these...anyone have a good vegan pair that they would recommend?). It will pay for itself after a few months, with what I would have spent on my monthly gym membership, and I think that I will be more apt to use it. I have a hard time going to the gym after work and during the summer, so this will be good for me to do later at night, when I feel more active anyways, but don't feel like leaving my apartment. I spent all morning playing with it and I'm feeling pretty good right now.

We were pretty wiped out by the time we got home last night, walking around all day. I had prepped everything for dinner beforehand, so we just had to roll out some pizza dough and put some toppings on and stick it in the oven. Isa Pizza it was! I love this pizza so much (from Vegan with a Vengeance). I also made a totally kick-ass cheesecake the night before, so that it would have time to set overnight. It was the Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake from the Delicious Choices PDF cookbook (I had found a download of it a long time ago and printed it out...i'm not sure where you can find it now, but google probably can. I found it from some link on the PPK, so if you search there, you can find it). I put in some red food coloring, so I had some pretty awesome hot pink and chocolate swirls. It turned out really creamy and yummy.

Also, thank you for the nice comments and encouragement with my new paintings! I'm feeling good about them and listed in them my shop early today. Woo! Now onto my next series...

Friday, February 13, 2009

I have some new paintings here. I've been in a superhero kick lately. Supposedly there is a Superhero Supply Store in Park Slope, that I MUST go to one of these days. Invisibility spray! Anti-Matter!

I am making a resolution to put more original paintings in my shop, not just prints, from now on. I usually find something wrong with the original and can't seem to put it out there for someone to buy. Prints are safer, in that regard, I guess. Silly, I know, but it's my own anal-retentiveness about my work showing through. Oi. I'm going to list them tomorrow, after I take some pictures of them hanging on an actual wall.

Super-tofu:

CarrotMan:

AsparagusMan:

Ms. AppleLady:

All are watercolor on a gessoed pine board.

I'm so happy it's friday!!! And I have monday off for Prez day too. Woo!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Spicy Tempeh and Broccoli Rabe with Rotelle, from Veganomicon! This was SO good and simple to make. I had some Broccoli Rabe in the freezer, leftover from the end of my summer CSA share and I've been putting off using it. Turns out Nik isn't a fan of the Rabe, so that makes it difficult to incorporate into dinners for the two of us. But yeah, this is wayy yum and I will definitely be making this again soon.

Lentils with rice and carmelized onions and carrots with spiced and baked tortillas in the background. I made this super-spicy and it was a yummy winner in the dinner department. I had two leftover soft tortillas left that I brushed with olive oil and spiced up. Nik ate them all.

Picked up our February CSA share on saturday. It was a big one! I especially enjoy the giant sweet potatoes, the dried beans, and the walnuts! Nik and I both hate beets though! Help! what can we make that will hide that dirt taste that I hate! I've tried roasting them and spicing the hell out of them and eating them raw (BLECH). Gazborsch kinda scares me...

I made the BEST wheat buns on sunday. They were so easy! I used 3 cups of whole wheat flour and 2 cups white flour. They turned out a little small, so I just made matching 'lil black bean burgers (recipe from Veganomicon). Slap some mashed guac on top and mmm.

before going in oven:After. Served with shredded green and purple cabbage, carrots, and green apples in an olive oil/apple cider vinegar/sea salt/pepper/thyme dressing.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

I made a pita puff!! So exciting! Only half the batch puffed, but still! Better than last time! There was no rhyme or reason to the puffs either. Some happened on the top shelf on a baking sheet and some happened on the bottom shelf of the oven on the pizza stone. Happy nonetheless! They were super-strong too, not like the whimpy dry pitas that you buy in the store that break if you put anything saucy in them. I made some homemade lemon hummus (with dried beans! I'm trying to be good about not buying canned.) and homemade falafel! Everything took way long to make, but it was way worth it. I made up a quick dill-veganaise dressing and a red cabbage/carrot/scallion/olive oil/apple cider vinegar/spices salad to go alongside and in. I used the non-puffed pita's the next day as leftovers and made a mini falafel-hummus-olive pizza.

I'm not gonna lie. I was disappointed when I started peeling my Tie-Dye potatoes, that I scored at the farmer's market, and they weren't tie-dyed inside. Baked potato and greens soup with french fry crouton! From Veganomicon and SOOO YUMMY. It was 50 degrees out yesterday, but was a snowglobe outside all day today. Soup was welcomed.

I had a sudden sweet-tooth urge at 11:30pm the other night, so I made mini-muffins. Chocolate-chocolate-chip-walnut. mmmm. I cooked them a bit too long, so they are a little crispy, but still yum! I used AmyArgh's blueberry muffin base, and just added in some cocoa, choc. chips, and walnuts. Bite-sized!

Sunday, February 1, 2009

I've been in a bit of a funk lately; Hoping it will pass soon and that everything will be okay.

Last night, Nik and I used up a gift certificate he had, at Asia De Cuba. So fun! Even though there were only 3 things on the menu that were vegan (2 appetizers and 1 side...), it was DAMN amazing. I was counting on this one entree being vegan, when I looked at the menu beforehand, but turns out they put egg in it somehow and they wouldn't make it without. This place is a sharing-type restaurant, so everything is super-pricey and HUUUUUGE portions (yaaay gift certificates). The appetizer salad I had might be the most amazing salad I have ever eaten though. It had cashews, hearts of palm, chicory, apples, mangos, and BANANAS with some sort of yummy lime dressing. Yes, bananas + cashews + lime dressing in my salad is beyond taste explosions.

We were going to see "The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons" afterwards, but we were stuck in a tunnel on the 6 train for 45 minutes instead and missed the movie.